WINE, FOOD AND CONVERSATION FROM NAPA VALLEY VINTNERSExploring Sauvignon BlancHometown Heroes Who Define Napa ValleyPairing Napa Wines and Asian-inspired DishesTrends in UpcyclingISSUE #6© 2018 JPMorgan Chase & Co. All rights reserved. J.P. Morgan is the marketing name for JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide.About JPMorgan Chase & Co.JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $2.5 trillion and operations worldwide. The Firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers and small businesses, commercial banking, financial transaction processing, and asset management. A component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, JPMorgan Chase & Co. serves millions of customers in the United States and many of the world’s most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients under its J.P. Morgan and Chase brands. Information about JPMorgan Chase & Co. is available at www.jpmorganchase.com.J.P. Morgan is proud to stand with this strong community, helping raise more than one million dollars for North Bay fire relief. We are honored to show our unwaveringsupport of the Napa Valley Vintners throughout Auction Napa Valley, and all of the moments in between.SPRING .NAPA VALLEY VINTNERS34 KAREN MACNEIL EXPLORES NAPA VALLEY SAUVIGNON BLANC8 NAPA VALLEY SPIRIT14 PAIRING ASIAN FLAVORS WITH NAPA VALLEY WINES19 REDUCE, REUSE, UPCYCLE25 SPRING AWAKENING30 TIPS FOR YOUR NEXT NAPA VALLEY TRIP 33 WHAT SOMMS ARE SAYINGCONTENTSSpring is a glorious time in the Napa Valley: bright yellow mustard flowers are blooming between vineyard rows, our hills are covered with sprouting green grass and buds are beginning to break on our world-famous vines. It’s a wonderful time to get outdoors and take in some of the other activities—besides tasting our extraordinary wines—that visitors come from miles away to enjoy: hiking in the hillsides, golf, bike riding, water sports and balloon rides. In this issue, winemakers share their favorite spring pastimes.Spring is also the season to begin working in the yard and planting vegetable gardens. Eventually, these become the building blocks of healthy meals, many inspired by the fresh flavors of Asian cuisine. We’re excited to share ideas for how you can pair those flavors with Napa Valley’s diverse styles and varieties of wine.We’re also celebrating hometown heroes who help our community in ordinary times and extraordinary times, like the October 2017 wine country wildfires. We think you’ll enjoy meeting them, too.We know many of you are just emerging from the dark cloak of a long, cold winter. We hope this issue of NAPA brings a little California sunshine into your life.Enjoy,Napa Valley VintnersWelcome to Napa!FIND US NapaVintners.comInstagram.com/NapaVintnersLIKE US Facebook.com/NapaVintnersFOLLOW US @NapaVintnersSEE US YouTube.com/NapaVintnersP.O. Box 141 St. Helena, CA 94574707.963.3388SPRING .NAPA VALLEY VINTNERS4Napa’s New White Wine ParadigmSUPER SAUVIGNONS ARE CREATING WAVES OF EXCITEMENT IN THE VALLEYBY KAREN MACNEIL As many of us know, wine is the quintessential un-trend. Vineyards, after all, are long-term endeavors. But there are paradigm shifts. And one of them is happening right now in the Napa Valley It’s the emergence of a whole new class of Sauvignon Blancs—wines that are bright, mineraly, sophisticated and complex, often with a ravishing raciness and richness. They aren’t “green,” vegetal or simple; in fact, from grape growing through winemaking, they have almost nothing in common with the Sauvignon Blancs of 10 to 15 years ago. I call the exciting new whites: Super Sauvignons.SPRING .NAPA VALLEY VINTNERS5In Napa County, where Sauvignon Blanc is the second most planted white grape after Chardonnay, plantings are up 40% since 2000. There are now 2,818 acres of Sauvignon Blanc in the valley (2016). Importantly, these grapes go into some of the most heralded white wines in California. Sauvignon Blancs such as Accendo, Lail Vineyards “Georgia,” Eisele Vineyard, Illumination by Quintessa, Rudd, Arietta, and Spottswoode, to name just a few, are at the forefront of the new style.The new Sauvignons reflect the current Napa-wide focus on vineyards. These Sauvignon Blancs are planted in better vineyard sites—in some cases, in sites that historically would have been reserved for Cabernet Sauvignon. Second, the vines are cared for and trained with great precision. Sauvignon Blanc is what is known as a highly vigorous variety. Left to its own devices, it grows like a weed, producing so many leaves and shoots that energy is diverted away from ripening grape clusters (and the wine can taste thin and green as a result). Napa’s new Sauvignon Blancs come from vines that are carefully manicured—at great expense. In fact, all other things being equal, it costs considerably more to grow a top Sauvignon Blanc vine than it does a Chardonnay vine.Sauvignon Blanc can be made in a variety of styles. Most of us are familiar with the fresh, crisp, easy-to-drink style that’s usually the result of fermentation in stainless steel tanks. The new Sauvignons go a step further and are usually made in multiple individual lots that might be fermented and/or aged in four or more types of vessels—concrete eggs, used oak barrels, small stainless steel drums and new oak barrels—and are then back blended and aged. The wines also undergo a lot of “lees stirring”—a process that adds rich texture to the wines. SAUVIGNON BLANCSauvignon Blanc is a vigorous (wild) growing plant. Grown on vines that are carefully manicured, there are over 2,800 acres of Sauvignon Blanc in Napa Valley. And furthering the complexity, many Super Sauvignons incorporate small amounts of other varieties (notably Sémillon), or other color mutations of itself (Sauvignon Gris), or other clonal selections like an especially aromatic version of Sauvignon Blanc called Sauvignon Musque (which is also now known as Sauvignon Blanc clone 27).Why these new Sauvignons are happening in Napa Valley now is a case study in the evolution of American wine culture. Maybe the speed of contemporary culture has infused us all with a passion for things vital and alive—and what is Sauvignon Blanc if not energetic? Or maybe we’ve come to realize that a great Sauvignon Blanc’s fresh, citrusy, botanical flavors and crisp acidity are wildly flexible when it comes to pairing wine with food. Undoubtedly, of course, threads of many reasons intertwine.We do know that the new Sauvignons have taken a long time to get here. The grape variety was first planted in California in the Livermore Valley in the 19th century thanks to newspaper journalist turned winemaker Charles Wetmore who, in the late 1870s, persuaded the California legislature to establish the state viticultural commission. As the commission’s first president and CEO, Wetmore headed straight for the prestigious estates of Europe where he obtained cuttings, including cuttings of Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon from no less than Bordeaux’s Château d’Yquem. Those Sauvignon Blanc cuttings (now called clone 1) became the plant material for vineyards all over the state. SPRING .NAPA VALLEY VINTNERS6Indeed, Wetmore’s clone 1 was probably the Sauvignon Blanc planted by Gustave Niebaum at Inglenook. An article in the February 4, 1881, edition of the St. Helena Star, noted that Niebaum received “900 choice cuttings of Sauvignon Blanc from San Jose.” Later, Beaulieu Vineyards won a gold medal for their Sauvignon Blanc (also probably clone 1) at the 1915 International Wine Exposition in San Francisco.But dark days followed for the variety. Grown at high yields after Prohibition, it became the basis for innocuous sweet and dry jug “Sauterne” (spelled without the final ‘s’ as it is in France). “Good Sauterne” (also called Haut Sauterne) was said to be made by just a few wineries including Inglenook, Larkmead, Eschol (now Trefethen) and ultimately Robert Mondavi Winery, which, sensing a marketing opportunity to distinguish its dry version, rebranded it as “Fume Blanc,” a reference to the Pouilly Fumé wines of the Loire Valley. And Mondavi still makes a very fine example, especially the Robert Mondavi To Kalon Vineyard “I Block” Fume Blanc, of which only a tiny amount is now made, given that the vines planted in 1949 are the oldest Sauvignon Blanc vines in Napa Valley, and may well be the oldest Sauvignon Blanc in California. In the end, I believe that all great wines are precise. Their flavors are not muddled or diffuse. Their flavors are exact and vivid—like the sound of a church bell in the mountains. For me, no domestic white wines are more precise or more inspiring than the new Super Sauvignons coming out of the Napa Valley.Karen MacNeil is the author of The Wine Bible and the digital newsletter WineSpeedSAUVIGNON BLANC“...all great wines are precise. Their flavors are not muddled or diffuse. Their flavors are exact and vivid—like the sound of a church bell in the mountains.”SPRING .NAPA VALLEY VINTNERS7SAUVIGNON BLANCAlthough much of the Sauvignon Blanc in California came from Bordeaux, the variety itself is now thought to have originated in the Loire Valley where its synonym “Fiers” was mentioned as early as the 1500s. The name Sauvignon is derived from two French words: sauvage (“wild”) and vigne (“vine”). As noted, Sauvignon Blanc is a vigorous (wild) growing plant; additionally, the shape of its leaves are similar to those of wild grapevines. One of Sauvignon Blanc’s parents was the ancient grape Savagnin (it’s not clear who the other parent was). That makes Sauvignon Blanc a sibling of Grüner Veltliner, Chenin Blanc, Silvaner and Verdelho, among several other grapes that originated in central France. From there, Sauvignon Blanc spread to the region around Bordeaux where it spontaneously crossed with Cabernet Franc, creating Cabernet Sauvignon sometime before the mid-1750s. Until the parentage of Cabernet Sauvignon was discovered by Dr. Carole Meredith and her PhD student John Bowers at the University of California at Davis in 1996, it was not thought that a red grape could have white grape as a parent. –Karen MacNeilNEUTRAL VESSELSOAKFRUIT FORWARD: CITRUS, STONE-FRUITS, WHITE PEACHGRASSY: HERBAL, MINERAL, WHITE BLOSSOMSADDED LEES FOR RICHNESS AND TEXTURE VANILLA, SWEET SPICE CREAM, BUTTER TOASTY, NUTTY Sauvignon Blanc’s Early Origins • SMALL CLUSTER • CONICAL IN SHAPE• TIGHTLY PACKED• MEDIUM-SIZED BERRIESSPRING .NAPA VALLEY VINTNERS8BOB HURLEYof Hurley’s RestaurantSTEVE BURGESSFirst Responder, Burgess CellarsNapa Valley Board Chair Supervisor Belia RamosGarrett and Betsy Busch Proprietor & CEO and Controller, Trinitas Cellars, Meritage Resort & SpaNAPA VALLEY SPIRITRob Weiss Executive Director, MENTIS (Napa,s Center for Mental Health Services)SPRING .NAPA VALLEY VINTNERS9SpiritNapa ValleyNapa County and nearby wine country communities experienced more than two weeks of uncertainty and disruption from a series of devastating wildfires in October 2017. Although the Napa Valley wine industry was largely spared, lives and property were lost and Napa Valley’s spirit was tested in innumerable ways.The fires also happened during harvest, the busiest time of the year, both for visitation and winemaking. While vintners from Carneros to Calistoga were taking unprecedented steps in their vineyards and wineries to ensure the quality of the 2017 vintage, it was the collaboration and camaraderie that Napa Valley is known for that got everyone through these trying times. Here are some community snapshots of the hometown heroes who helped restore Napa Valley’s spirit and remind us of why this is, indeed, a very special spot on earth. Some are real life first responders who selflessly put their lives on the line every day. Others work with organizations that make it a daily mission to put others first. And then there are those who simply did their part because it’s in their Napa Valley DNA. Together, they represent the parts that make up the whole which helps the Napa Valley community spirit to thrive.NAPA VALLEY SPIRIT